- Update Notes for October 3, 2025 - 3 October 2025
Fix for Unity engine security bulletin.
- Steam Playtest Now Available for The Political Machine 2024 - 21 February 2024
Pre-order Customers can now Participate in the Steam Playtest https://store.steampowered.com/app/2512090/The_Political_Machine_2024/ Stardock announced that the latest iteration of its hit political strategy series, The Political Machine 2024 entered its playtest phase today. The game, which allows players to simulate a run for the American presidency, features an updated roster of politicians and introduces new gameplay mechanics that reflect the ever-evolving landscape of U.S. politics. The Political Machine 2024 allows players to step into the shoes of current political figures like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, and Nikki Haley, or create a fully customized candidate through the game's character customization system. Building on the series’ robust political simulation model, which has been recognized by major news outlets for its accuracy in predicting previous election…
- Update Notes for February 20, 2024 - 20 February 2024
Launcher update: Added support for The Political Machine 2024.
- Announcing The Political Machine 2024 - 7 November 2023
Pre-order now and get the 'Cabinet of Curiosities' DLC free https://store.steampowered.com/app/2512090/The_Political_Machine_2024/ Stardock announced the latest iteration of its hit political strategy series, The Political Machine 2024 today. The game, which allows players to simulate a run for the American presidency, features an updated roster of politicians and introduces new gameplay mechanics that reflect the ever-evolving landscape of U.S. politics. The Political Machine 2024 allows players to step into the shoes of current political figures like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Ron DeSantis, or create a completely customized candidate with the game’s in-depth creation workshop. Building on the series’ robust political simulation model, which has been recognized by major news outlets for its accuracy in predicting previous election outcomes, the 2024 edition adds some…
- Update Note for October 9, 2023 - 9 October 2023
Launcher update for Galactic Civilizations IV.
- Update Notes for 7/27/23 - 27 July 2023
Just a launcher update to replace some graphics files.
- The Political Machine 2020 v1.4 - The Final Stretch - 29 October 2020
Greetings fellow Political Junkies! It's almost here - the moment we've all been waiting for - Election Night 2020! Of course, being 2020, experts warn that the surge in mail-in ballots may result in an 'Election Month', but...whatever. I know WE'RE pumped! And with early voter numbers being shattered, it looks like most of the electorate is pumped too! But enough about the horse race - let's talk about v1.4! Randomization Options In the Advanced Setting popup, you can now play with the Randomization of Issues and State Data. Want a crazy game where all the state values are scrambled and the big issues are "Banning Soft Drinks" and "Giving Frogs the Right to Vote"? Want a regular game with just small randomization tweaks made to top issues? In v1.4, all those randomization options at your fingertips. New Achievements We've doubled the number of available achievements to unlock, giving h…
- The Political Machine 2020 v1.31 - The Big Issues - 24 September 2020
Hard to believe there are only 6 weeks until election day! With a new slew of issues on everyone's minds, we thought it would be a good week to make some additions to bring the state of the game in line with the state of the race. New Issues National Mask Mandate: Should the federal government or regional authorities be in charge of determining the laws of mask-wearing during a pandemic? Additional Stimulus Checks: Do you support sending citizens a second stimulus check and risk a ballooning deficit, or does the rebounding stock market mean the economy is doing fine as-is? Defunding the Police: Protesters have called for the dismantling and defunding of Law Enforcement, but opposition points to National Rioting as the exact reason we need that Law Enforcement. Prosecuting Rioters: To protest is American, but what happens when those protests turn ugly? Updated Issues #BlackLivesMatter: A…
- New Founding Fathers DLC and FREE v1.3 Update - 13 August 2020
Get Ready, Pundits! The Founding Fathers DLC & HUGE Update Have Arrived Battle for your spot in the White House against the founding fathers of America! In the new Founding Fathers DLC, you'll play as political heavyweights like George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and more. Do you have what it takes to go down in history? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1383230 DLC FEATURES New Candidates None of the founding fathers could predict where the world would be some 200 years later, but some of their ideals are still applicable anyway! All of the new candidates’ ideologies have been adjusted to tackle current real-world issues. The founding fathers included in the DLC are: George Washington Thomas Jefferson Alexander Hamilton James Madison John Adams New Ideology Tree - Democratic Republican States’ rights and a way to keep the national government in check were the cornersto…
- The Political Machine 2020 v1.3 Preview! - 22 July 2020
Greetings fellow Armchair Politicians! Well...isn't this the craziest election year we've ever seen? I've been on every single version of TPM, and between Coronavirus, Protests, Economic uncertainty, and Biden's "turtle" strategy, I've never seen an election cycle like this! But that just means it's time to get out an update for The Political Machine! Currently being tested by QA, the 1.3 update will be out soon. In the meantime, here are some of the goodies you'll get when the update hits Steam! New Feature: Candidate Workshop This has been in the works for a while, but with v1.3 you'll FINALLY be able to upload your custom candidates! Simply select the Upload Candidate option from Mods, choose your candidate, and upload to Steam. Doesn't get much easier than 3 clicks (well, besides 2 clicks or 1 click), but it's still pretty darn easy. We can't wait to see the presidential contenders…
- NOW AVAILABLE: v1.2 for The Political Machine 2020 adds McCain and Obama - 20 May 2020
John McCain and Barack Obama have entered the race! Greetings from The Political Machine Development Bunker. While Shelter-In-Place rules have us working from home, that hasn't stopped the updates from flowing! Today we released v1.2, with two new highly-requested candidates - each with their own unique Ideology Tree - and several quality of life improvements that should make fans pretty happy. NEW CANDIDATES A blast from the Political Past, players can now recreate that epic 2008 campaign between the fresh faced Obama and the war-hardened Senator McCain. Each candidate has their own hand-crafted 3D assets, along with the custom Ideology Trees "Hope and Change" and the "Straight Talk Express". INFINITE POINTS MODE OK guys, we finally bit the bullet. When creating your custom candidate, you can now toggle an 'Infinite Mode' where you can spend as many stat points as you want. Fair warnin…
- Election Night – 9th May 2020 - 8 May 2020
Do you have what it takes to energize the voters, win the debate and secure the presidency in The Political Machine 2020? Well come and join us this Saturday for our Election Night event. Players are encouraged to come online, hang out on the discord server and play games matching off against one another. You are free to choose from an official or custom candidate in these 1v1s. Discord Stream
- The Political Machine 2020: v1.2 Preview - Party Like it's 2008! - 5 May 2020
We've been hard at work on The Political Machine - some cool v1.2 stuff that I can show you now, but also some super secret stuff that I've sworn an oath to keep under wraps! Our next update is v1.2, where we'll be updating the game with new issue tweaks, candidates, ideologies, and fixes. Our two big additions are Barack Obama and John McCain, the stars of the 2008 Presidential Election, each with their own Ideology Trees. Barack Obama is back with his "Hope and Change" tree, complete with a branch completely devoted to political smooth talk (items with a high Ideology Cost to get voters excited, but no downside). And yes, Obama gets the coveted "Tingly" Media Bias stat, where get gets up to 6 pts per town hall. Very powerful. John McCain's Ideology is the "Straight Talk Express", with some unique Military Issues ("Caring for Veterans" and "Humane Interrogation"). Unfortunately, Straig…
- Election Night - 24 April 2020
Do you have what it takes to energize the voters, win the debate and secure the presidency in The Political Machine 2020? Well come and join us this Saturday for our inaugural Election Night event. Players are encouraged to come online, hang out on the discord server and play games matching off against one another. You are free to choose from an official or custom candidate in these 1v1s. Discord Stream
- The Political Machine 2020: v1.1 Now Available - 8 April 2020
v1.1 Features Steam Workshop Support and New Candidates Steam Workshop support and new candidates have been added in this major update for the Political Machine 2020. Bernie may be out of the race, but he is still available as a candidate in The Political Machine 2020 to play with or against. If you're looking to recapture the glory of former elections, grab Ronald Reagan or Al Gore and try to win in 2020. Top Updates Steam Workshop: Upload and download new Ideology Trees to use with custom candidates! New Candidates: + Ronald Reagan + Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez + Mitch McConnell + Al Gore + Barry Goldwater Election Night Speed Controls: Whether you want a long, drawn out reveal or a quick conclusion, you now have full control over the speed of the election night camera. End of Game Scorecard: The Election Night polls now calculate and show you the score of you and your opponent. Balance…
- The Political Machine 2020 #5: One for the Gipper - 8 April 2020
This week’s update to the Political Machine adds Ronald Reagan. He’s the first candidate that includes a scoring handicap which means that your score is modified slightly because he’s a bit easier to win with than other candidates. We’ll show you here. The update also includes AOC, Al Gore, and Barry Goldwater. The Reagan Era Ronald Reagan was one of the last Presidents we had before the hyper politicization of American life really took hold. In 1980 and 1984 he won California, something that would not be possible today regardless of whether he had been governor or not. Simulating Reagan In this simulation, we have Reagan going up against Hillary Clinton. It’s not very close. This is where the handicap comes in. It takes a lot of testing and tweaking here. For example, we have a _Credibility stat which affects how persuasive someone is on a given issue. Hence, Reagan, who is pro-life is…
- The Political Machine 2020: #4 Steam Workshop Support - 27 March 2020
The next update to The Political Machine will be including mod support to Steam Workshop. Specifically, we are going to let people make their own ideologies and share them with others. We include quite a few in the game. We will be uploading a few ideology mods to get things started and to help others learn how to make them. What is an ideology? An ideology is a set of issues your candidate wants to run on. Unlike normal campaign issues, ideology issues, when run on, increase the importance of those issues nationally. This results in making different candidates play quite differently. Players can either have their ideology work with existing issues or create their own from scratch (which is a new feature in v1.1). New Features We are also adding an election night speed so players can savor (or zip through) the results: We also are implementing a scoring system. In this test, we made a c…
- Newly Updated: The Coronavirus Issue - 19 March 2020
The Political Machine 2020 continues to be updated throughout this election year with current events and political changes. Today's update focused on increasing the importance of the Coronavirus issue. Look for more updates in the coming weeks as we all practice social distancing and work from home routines. Changelog Boosted importance of the Coronavirus issue so that it's no longer 'neutral' for everyone
- Newly Updated: The Coronavirus Issue - 19 March 2020
The Political Machine 2020 continues to be updated throughout this election year with current events and political changes. Today's update focused on increasing the importance of the Coronavirus issue. Look for more updates in the coming weeks as we all practice social distancing and work from home routines. Changelog Boosted importance of the Coronavirus issue so that it's no longer 'neutral' for everyone
- We have to kill the fish - 11 March 2020
Yesterday Biden appears to have made significant progress towards securing the Democratic nomination. Today, The Political Machine gets an update with new candidates, polling data and new features including a candidate issue editor and lots of other stuff. Valentino Rutabach The Lunacy ideology gets a candidate in the form of Valentino Rutabach. Valentino, or "The Colonel", as he likes to be called (he never served in the military), has a variety of issues that we can all agree are more important than whatever is happening in the world right now. One such issue is, of course, bringing back IBM's OS/2 operating system and the Amiga. The Issue Editor Players can now go through the various political issues when creating a custom candidate and choose their position on them. We have designed this so that players can have a significant impact if on the strength of their candidate by choosing…
